


Far From Home

by mathelode (engmaresh)



Category: The Tensorate Series - J. Y. Yang
Genre: Canon Non-Binary Character, Gen, Humor, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 21:52:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/mathelode
Summary: It's their first night in the monastery. Akeha can't sleep and Mokoya isn't any help.





	Far From Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luckybarton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckybarton/gifts).



Akeha lay back in their bed, arms crossed behind their head as they stared up at the ceiling. It was different from the one they had lain under every second night-cycle of their life until this one. Instead of smooth square panels that stretched wall to wall, someone had just thrown a coat of whitewash over the stone. It was beginning to peel in places. And while they’d known for a long time that this day would come, it felt even more like a betrayal to know that mother, that Sonami, would send them off to such a place, where they couldn’t even afford to repaint their ceilings!

At least they had a good view. The window was open, and looked out into the courtyard, wild in a way Sonami would never have allowed in at the Grand High Palace. The branches of a great saga tree grew right up to their window, dripping with moss. Dried pods half-filled with small, shiny red saga seeds lay scattered around on the grass. Mokoya liked using them for decoration, but Akeha had found that they made good projectiles when blown through dried reed stalks. They’d already gathered fistfuls of them after their arrival, when the Head Abbot had left them there under the watchful eye of a novice monk while he returned to his duties.

During the day-cycles, the courtyard had been filled with noise, acolytes and initiates studying, sweeping, carrying out their chores, while the droning of the older monks at their lectures drifted out into the open. Now with most of the monastery in bed or in meditation, the only sounds that came through the window were the croaking of frogs and the endless chittering of insects.

Focusing on that sound, Akeha closed their eyes and cleared their mindeye, reaching into the Slack. They worried about Mokoya. The monks had insisted on putting them in separate quarters, and Mokoya had been stubborn about obeying them, even though Akeha had repeatedly offered to sneak into their room after lights-out. This too was new; they’d never slept apart since birth, and Akeha felt the absence of their sibling like a thorn in their side. Around Mokoya, the Slack rippled like the surface of a lake, but despite this, they remained deeply asleep.

Their leg itched, and Akeha scratched idly at it, slipping back into the world. If only Mokoya would reach out to them! But they couldn’t begrudge their twin their sleep. Nightmares had come all too frequently over the past few weeks as their departure date had neared, and Akeha wasn’t going to rouse Mokoya from the first good sleep they’d had in days.

Finally giving up on their own futile attempts at rest, Akeha slipped out of their room. The stone floor was cold under their bare feet, and they tipped-toed silently down the corridor. The Head Abbot had warned them about the curfew, and so they knew to look out for Master Yeo. But the desk at the entrance of the sleeping quarters that Master Yeo considered her domain was unmanned, and through the Slack, Akeha could feel an alert presence on the other side of the building by the outhouses. Relieved at their luck, Akeha slipped out into the courtyard.

The grass was damp under their feet, and the light of the full moon was bright enough that Akeha could see the glimmer of individual saga seeds scattered about the grass. Somewhere near their left foot, a toad croaked and hopped away. Akeha briefly considered catching it, secreting it somewhere in their robes for a prank later, but a sudden vision of Mokoya’s disappointed expression intruded into the fantasy. Too soon. Maybe once they’d been here longer, once they knew exactly how things worked here in the monastery.

They walked up to the saga tree’s giant trunk, balancing on the roots that spread out across the courtyard. Cracked slabs of pavement had been pushed up over the years by the sheer force of nature, and Akeha made a game of it, leaping lighting from root to root, avoiding the ground. The ground was lava, and one touch would kill.

The tug that came through the fabric of the Slack was gentle, but enough to distract Akeha mid-leap. Their foot slipped on a root and they fell back, arms pinwheeling wildly. Their yelp of surprise rang through the courtyard, calling forth a faint, answering oath from Master Yeo’s desk. Under their breath, Akeha muttered an curse they’d heard from the palace staff, one even perfect Sonami had once gotten a beating for saying. Another root had caught them in their hip when they’d fallen, and it hurt.

Rolling to their feet, they looked for the source of the tug. Mokoya! There, at the window, pale in the moonlight as they looked down at Akeha with an uncharacteristic frown on their face. Footsteps neared, and unwilling to be caught on their first night, Akeha took the only option left. They swarmed up the tree, fingers and toes scrabbling at the rough, mossy bark. Saga trees grew tall, with little to no low branches, but an old knot gave Akeha enough purchase for adrenaline and stubbornness to do the rest. By the time Master Yeo reached the tree, prowling around like a restless tiger as she looked for the culprit of the noise, Akeha was safely tucked into the fork of the tree. The Slack roiled in their mindeye, Mokoya’s worry reaching clear across, but they too were no longer at the window, though Akeha could sense them crouched right under the sill.

After what felt like cycles, Master Yeo finally gave up on her grumbling and searching, and huffed back towards her station. Akeha gave her several minutes before they dared to move, and when they looked towards the window, Mokoya visible again, leaning out so far they were afraid their twin would fall out.

“What are you doing?” they hissed.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Akeha mouthed back, afraid to raise their voice too much. They’d learned from experience back in the Grand High Palace that staff and guards often heard better than they let on.

“Come back up!” Mokoya whispered, and gestured forcefully towards themselves. Akeha looked down. They could jump, but getting back indoors would be the hard part. No doubt Master Yeo was on her guard now.

They edged carefully away from the fork, placing foot over foot down on the branch that stretched closest to Mokoya’s window. Mokoya saw what they were doing and their eyes went comically wild before they frantically began making shooing gestures. Akeha stabbed a finger at the entrance and shook their head. Mokoya smacked a palm against their forehead, loud enough that Akeha winced at the sound.

The branch creaked as they moved along it, crouched low to keep their balance. Mokoya made an aborted move with their hand, as though they’d been about to reach into the Slack but thought better of it. That gave Akeha some relief. At this point they weren’t sure how the manipulation the Slack could help them, and neither of them had quite mastered working with earth or water-nature enough that Akeha could just float over to the window.

They’d shuffled about halfway down the branch when it gave a loud groan under them and dipped dangerously.

“Akeha!” Mokoya squeaked, then clapped a hand over their mouth, eyes darting around in panic.

“Chee bye,” Akeha muttered under their breath, and leapt. For one horrifying moment they were sure they would miss, that the monks would be scraping their remains off the floor tomorrow and shipping them back to mother—wouldn’t she be amused by that—but they made it! Their hands wrapped around the sill, and the rest of them slammed into the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of them.

Hands clamped around their wrists and hauled them up, feet scrabbling against the wood. They tumbled into the room. The cold hard floor had never felt so welcome.

Once the adrenaline had subsided, Akeha pushed themselves up from the ground, looking around for their twin. They were quite impressed by Mokoya’s feat of strength. Too focused on not falling at the time, Akeha really hadn’t been paying attention to how they’d manipulated the Slack to pull them up into the room.

But instead of their sibling's mismatched eyes, their gaze caught the beady dark gaze of the Head Abbot. Behind him, Mokoya sat cross-legged on their thin mattress, nervously chewing on their thumbnail.

Repressing a groan, Akeha bowed their head. They’d take what punishment was given to them. Maybe the monks would even send them back to Sonami, as long as Mokoya was allowed to leave too.

But the Head Abbot didn’t scold, nor did he look like he was preparing to give a beating. Instead he peered out the window while shaking his head, gave a giant rumbling yawn, then turned to look at them with an amused glint in his eyes.

“If you didn’t like the sleeping arrangements you could have just said so.”


End file.
